When I first came to college, I was expecting to have a variety of relationships with friends, professors, coaches, classmates, and other students that will, unfortunately, remain strangers. I have been surprised, mostly pleasantly, by those relationships. I know many of the people I have met here will be people I could contact in ten years and still be able to get their help, and I would help them in return.
However, there has been one relationship that I never expected: one with one of the men that work the front desk at the gym.
It has developed over time. My freshman year during outdoor track season, I would walk into the gym and right up to the desk a few times a week to ask for the closet in the back of the gym to be opened. My equipment is kept there and I needed it for practice. The same man has worked there at that time since I got here.
And now, two years later, when I walk into the gym around 4 pm, he either tells me the closet is open or grabs his keys to open it unless I signal that it’s not needed that day.
It’s a small thing, but it reminds me that we are all, to an extent, dependent on each other to help the college run and to help further our lives. One action or achievement or failure affects the people around us and gives them something to write about, or inspiration, or an idea, or even a lesson in what not to do.
No matter what it is, directly or indirectly, we learn from and help each other, and I think that’s what college is all about.
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